Microsoft's next assault on telecoms market, via Telco 2.0

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 19 June 2007 03:09

Opinion and Analysis

You've all heard of Web 2.0, but what about Telco 2.0? It could be the next big disruptive wave to hit the telecoms industry, and Microsoft is gearing up to ride it to success.

The term Telco 2.0 is actually a trademark (which Microsoft fails to acknowledge in its press release detailing its latest Telco 2.0 initiatives). The trademark is claimed by STL Partners a US based advisory and analysis firm specialising in supporting innovation and change in the Telecoms, Media and Technology and which has an entire web site devoted to the Telco 2.0 Initiative.

STL explains Telco 2.0 thus: "Our belief is that there is a single dominant source of structural change in the communications industry. This trend is the separation of network connectivity from user-facing application services and content. The phenomenon is both technical (everything over IP) as well as financial (separate purchase of access and service). The trend is clear and obvious. Changes to mass user behaviour are already seen (eg VoIP, P2P music/video downloads, Social Media). Yet few (if any) operators have strategies that can be explicitly traced back to this underlying force."

But back to Microsoft and it latest Telco 2.0 initiatives. This week at NXTcomm 2007, (a big US telecoms trade show) Microsoft promises to demonstrate "how it helps telecommunications providers make the transition to Telco 2.0, where traditional telecommunications offerings meld with technologies from the Web 2.0 world to form a nearly endless range of innovative new services."

Microsoft says it will highlight three components critical to making Telco 2.0 a reality: screens, services and service delivery. Solutions and products featured at the show will include Microsoft Mediaroom, the latest update to its IPTV Edition software platform, Microsoft Windows Mobile enhanced products for VoIP services, hosted messaging and collaboration, and a host of others.

Also at NXTcomm Microsoft will highlight results from its 'Connected Services Sandbox', an initiative to help promote its Telco 2.0 vision of delivering scores of new service offerings that merge traditional telecommunications offerings with Web 2.0 applications.